What is a meatloaf, but a loaf of meat with things in it right? Well this one is chock full of things. Good things, that made for a yummy dinner tonight. Cooking for a big family, is 1 part knowing how to cook, 1 part optical illusion, and 1 part being creative with what you found on sale this week, or whats about to go bad from last week. If you can master mixing the three and making something they will eat, then my friend you an conquer the world.

We have eat a lot of potatoes this week because they were on sale last week, I just finished up the last of the "2 five pound bags for $5.00" potatoes tonight.

I love this recipe because its one dish, the meat and potatoes are all cooked in the same dish in the oven. I love oven recipes in general because they don't require you to stand over them. But this is pretty simple.

The optical illusion part of cooking is making less look like more. Take meatballs, and meatloaf, meatloaf stretches farther than meatballs, at least here they do, these folks see a dish of meatballs and they get way more of the bite size balls than if its meatloaf shaped and they get a slice but for whatever reason the meatloaf looks bigger, fills a bigger space on the plate and makes them think they are getting more when they are actually taking a smaller serving. try it sometime. Cook meatballs one time, and meatloaf the next time and see which stretches farther. I'm not sure exactly why it works the way it works but it just does.

Speaking of meatballs, I came up with this recipe after reading a porcupine meatball recipe. I had to get creative with it because the grocery store is 25 minutes away and there is no air conditioner in the car and we are still suffering the sweltering heat of summer here. So, we had to use what dollar general had to offer when I discovered that I only had one package of ground turkey and not 2 like I thought I had. Dollar General is a short 10 minutes down the road and even me with one good eye can drive there if need be.

So tonight, corned beef ground turkey porcupine meatloaf became a thing, and it was a good thing. The critics eat it up. I served it with the potatoes and mustard greens and biscuits. Traci even made a cherry pie complete with home made crust to go with it.



Before we get to the recipe lets talk meat to fat ratio. Any good meatloaf needs a good fatty meat, always but especially when cooking potatoes, and in the case rice in with it. the dry ingredients, the bread crumbs, the rice, the french fried onions, and the potatoes around the edges all need your loaf to have a good amount of juice or you will have a dry meatloaf. I added softened butter to this mixture.

Ok, with that said, lets get to the recipe.




corned beef turkey porcupine meatloaf


(the meatloaf)

1 lb ground turkey
1 can corned beef
1/3 cup seasoned bread crumbs
1/4 cup french fried onions crushes
1/3 cup uncooked rice
garlic powder to taste
salt to taste
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 egg
1/2 stick softened butter
3 tbsp chicken broth

(the sauce)

1 can Campbell's tomato soup
1 package ranch dressing powder
1/2 stick melted butter
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
salt to taste
2/3 cup chicken broth

(potatoes)

4 cups potatoes diced

For meatloaf mix all ingredients well and shape into a loaf in center of lightly greased large casserole dish

Cut potatoes and spread evenly around the edges of your meatloaf

Mix all sauce ingredients and pour over potatoes and on top of meatloaf this is your sauce and your glaze

cover tightly with tin foil and cook in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour 15 minutes then uncover and cook an addition 20 minutes let set for 10 minutes before serving.



When salting keep in mind that the corned beef, and the ranch powder, and the Worcestershire sauce all already have a good bit of salt in them so you wont need as much salt as you might with other meatloaf recipes.